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Microsoft knows Windows is obsolete. a sneak peek at its replacement

zdnet.com

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Re: Microsoft knows Windows is obsolete. a sneak peek at its replacement

#4
"Some of it is developer laziness. It's not like they haven't had 15 years to learn and adopt .NET and the past five years to adopt Metro/Modern/UWP."

Once I can't target Win32 anymore I'll switch to the browser. Metro/Modern/UWP isn't on my radar. I doubt I'm alone in those thoughts.

Re: Microsoft knows Windows is obsolete. a sneak peek at its replacement

#5
There are a lot of issues with this article - Windows S is no more a 'new' OS than an environment running AppLocker is a new OS. The $49 'upgrade' from WinS to a 'full' Windows 10 is simply removing the restriction, it's the same OS through and through

UWP doesn't explicitly require XAML as part of the stack directx and win2d provide more direct access to graphics hardware

Edge is not a Native UWP application - whatever that means - it's possible to take existing applications and package them to run as a UWP applications, even ones that use COM and Win32. The rendering engine that Edge uses is actually part of the UWP stack - any HTML+JS UWP app uses EdgeHTML as the layout engine. The JavaScript engine, chakra, is a cross platform open source c/c++ library

What MS is doing with WinS is attempting to promote a walled garden and changing windows into a closed platform.

WinS is the first consumer facing foray to this approach. Somehow announcing this in the same breath as education makes it ok.

It might be a noble effort to try to sandbox windows apps, however there are some major detractors: 1) The MS store is a mess, it combines the worst parts of the android App Store and the walled approach of the iOS App Store. But nobody seems to be committed into cleaning it up. 2) not having a compelling mobile story makes existing devs look elsewhere - even Microsoft itself. 3) eliminating compatibility for a broad swath of applications is orthogonal to the approach that Windows has had for decades.

Windows S is the freemium strategy applied to Operating Systems

Re: Microsoft knows Windows is obsolete. a sneak peek at its replacement

#7
UWP is a locked lock, annoying, walled garden that nobody wants to write programs for,

Nobody wants to write programs for it, and the only people who run UWP programs are those who either have no choice or do so by mistake.

If we can't run WIN32 or freely write win32 programs then windows is dead.

Re: Microsoft knows Windows is obsolete. a sneak peek at its replacement

#8
Windows S is still Windows, but with more restriction. I don't see how giving up control over the apps is more secure. It just means you have to trust Microsoft instead of some other org making the app. With the Windows 10 privacy issues, the last thing I want to do is give up control.
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